Well, part of what he's saying may be true, but (a) your skills actually do improve when you have been skating longer and (b) you become more adept at skating in a way that earns more points. So I think it does reflect skill; if you ignored the jumps at NHK Mao is the class of the field. But reputation is factored in as well IMO.

Mao had three triple jumps in total, two of which were in combination, not two, as Mr. Minshin claims. Maybe he should learn to count.
Anyway, it's like shooting yourself in the feet (=Plushenko) for Mr. Mishin to be saying this.
And Mao's skating skills, after two years of careful coaching by Mr. Sato, are now better than they have ever been before in her career, and they were already good when she went to him.
Or could it be that Mr. Mishin lacks the expertise to be able to see this?

Lol. My thoughts are pretty much what others have pointed out: there may well be some truth to the notion that the components score doesn't accurately reflect skill and that reputation counts (not necessarily time spent on the scene, but time spent winning medals). But...pretty ironic that someone in Plushy's camp is complaining about this.